Arizona Solar Center Blog

Commentary from Arizona Solar Center Board Members and invited contributors.

While blog entries are initiated by the Solar Center, we welcome dialogue around the posted topics. Your expertise and perspective are highly valued -- so if you haven't logged in and contributed, please do so!

As small renewable energy systems are increasingly deployed at the sub-utility scale, distributed solar photovoltaic systems will continue to be the leading form of renewable distributed energy generation installations, according to a new report from Pike Research.

We usually speak of "alternative energy sources" as positives. Across the developing world, however, these "alternatives" take the forms of dung and wood for cooking, candles and kerosene for lighting. Governments have done an absolutely dismal job of rolling out access to modern energy.

Reports of the death of the solar industry are greatly exaggerated. Yes, there have been some high profile bankruptcies of US solar companies -- Solyndra, Evergreen, Spectrawatt -- in 2011. But the solar industry as a whole is on a boom that is only going to increase in coming years, which will transform how we produce and use energy.

Scientists in the US and the UK have been awarded funding totalling more than $10.3 m to improve understanding of the process of biological photosynthesis. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) collaborated in issuing these jointly funded awards.